How may I discover the lost word?
Nowhere and in no way. In other rites you may receive other substitutes but the real Lost Word-never. This is the unanswerable question.
The Lost Word is the most perplexing and most important symbol of the Fraternity; few if any are less understood. The Lost Word is not a syllable, or several syllables; “word†is here used as St John used it: (‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.†The Lost Word is not discovered in Freemasonry; Masons are given a substitute. Of the Lost Word, it has been written (Introduction to Freemasonry) “Never may we find it here. You shall gaze through microscope and telescope and catch no sight of its shadow. You shall travel many lands and far and see it not. You shall listen to all the words of all the tongues which all men have ever spoken and will speak-the Lost Word is not heard. Were it but a word, how easy to invent another! But it is not a word but The Word. the great secret, the unknowableness which the Great Architect sets before his children, a will-o’-the wisp, to follow, a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Never here is it to be found, but the search for it is the reason for life.
“The Sublime Degree teaches that in another life it may be found. That is why it is the Sublime Degree.â€
Nowhere and in no way. In other rites you may receive other substitutes but the real Lost Word-never. This is the unanswerable question.
The Lost Word is the most perplexing and most important symbol of the Fraternity; few if any are less understood. The Lost Word is not a syllable, or several syllables; “word†is here used as St John used it: (‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.†The Lost Word is not discovered in Freemasonry; Masons are given a substitute. Of the Lost Word, it has been written (Introduction to Freemasonry) “Never may we find it here. You shall gaze through microscope and telescope and catch no sight of its shadow. You shall travel many lands and far and see it not. You shall listen to all the words of all the tongues which all men have ever spoken and will speak-the Lost Word is not heard. Were it but a word, how easy to invent another! But it is not a word but The Word. the great secret, the unknowableness which the Great Architect sets before his children, a will-o’-the wisp, to follow, a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Never here is it to be found, but the search for it is the reason for life.
“The Sublime Degree teaches that in another life it may be found. That is why it is the Sublime Degree.â€